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Tuesday, August 29, 2006

These days, U.S. Senate candidate and Mary Kay sales rep-lookalike Katherine Harris is going off the deep end. According to the Associated Press:

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" .... The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

... Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday ...

Then I guess that makes Thomas Jefferson ("wall of separation between church and state"), James Madison (who cited the benefits of "total separation of the church from the State") and many other famous Americans liars.

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.

Her comments drew criticism, including some from fellow Republicans, who called them offensive and not representative of the party. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, who is Jewish, told the Orlando Sentinel that she was "disgusted" by the comments.

Oh, there's more. In her interview with the publication Florida Baptist Witness, Harris asserted that separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."

Katherine, dear, put away your lip gloss and listen up.

This is America. We don't have "rulers." I realize that you, Boehner, Hastert and the rest of the GOP cabal like to think of yourselves as rulers, but we haven't had rulers for 230 years. Rulers have subjects. Elected officials have constituents who have a lot more leverage (although not as much as they should) -- just ask a guy like Gray Davis. Under our government, elected officials derive their "just powers from the consent of the governed."

Finally, how silly of you to say that God chooses our leaders. Our leaders are chosen by ordinary citizens in democratic elections.*

*-- unless, of course, a crafty and conniving governor works closely with an obedient secretary of state and, well, the rest is history.